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Shared Responsibility for Roxana Saberi’s Situation

Journalist Roxana Saberi should not be in jail. The Iranians are both foolish and cruel for arresting her, trying her in secret and depriving her of her lawyer. She was even forbidden from attending her own trial. So much for justice Iranian style.

This, of course, makes no sense. Eight years for espionage? If she truly were a spy, she would have gotten life–or death. The sentence bespeaks the level of unfunny farce.

However, we should remember with whom we are dealing and realize that this was a foreseeable consequence to an American-born journalist losing her press credentials and reporting anyway. It is neither right nor fair but let her clients, for whom she reported, take some responsibility for putting her in predictable jeopardy.

Both the BBC and our own National Public Radio kept using her reporting even after knowing that her credentials had been revoked. In some countries you do not work at all as a foreigner without a permit. In Iran, it is safe to say that if they tell you can’t report and you do it anyway, they might take it somewhat amiss.

Let me be clear, I am not defending the Iranian regime and this judicial mockery. I am asking our own news media to exercise some care for the safety of their reporters. Yes, reporters are put in harm’s way all the time. It is a dangerous profession. We do not need to make it more dangerous by putting a young reporter in the face of such a predictably angry and paranoid government.